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November 24, 2012

A beast was born on a cold winter
dawn of the 10th of December. The newborn lay combating the ruthless unforgiving wild amidst thorns and bramble in the outskirts of a small village. It bellowed its first sound into the world which was a deafening
howl that echoed and thistled through the wild growth - letting its presence
known. Mortal existence around the affair heard and felt it. Goose bumps could be sensed
erupting on calm skins. Most of them blamed it on the chill in the air and closed their windows. An intolerable pity dawned when no human could recognize the wonder that had just landed amongst them. Because a wonder was beyond their
conceivable beliefs and nurturing, the phenomenon was brushed aside as a mischief of the silly North wind.

The beast entered the village in
shadows and sensed fear in every corner. The animal inside the creature was fed
off the abhorrence of the civil. His vicious talons and hypnotic gaze was
discomfort at an arm’s length. A misfit. An outcast. With no past and a non
existent future, he toiled. It was the beast’s curse to not know what he could
achieve. The curse that brought him here. He could have been an idea at the
most. Or a figment of the village idiot’s imagination that no one wanted to
fructify. The truth was that the beast was sinister. He was like a bad painting
hidden behind drapes. A painting that revealed too much and absorbed the
onlooker’s engrossment. It made the audience too uncomfortable within their own
skins. It was cursed!

The fact that he was born to reign was forever kept from him. He had the invincible power to do whatever pleased him. The
village knew this even before he was born. There were stories told at bedtime
of a beast so vicious that he could rid a soul of its will to exist. Children
were threatened to never share these stories outside their rooms. Every kid grew
up with the story buried in his heart and never uttered a word about it. The
beast grew up smelling this fear and never questioning it. He was doomed to live
in the darkness and never realize his capacity to conquer. He toiled away his
youth earning for his daily meat. Earning for himself. He lived for himself and wanted no
more.

As time passed by, the talons
lost their shine. The hypnotic gaze faded and gradually in the village’s fear
the beast was tamed.